Headshot of Liz.

Elizabeth Adetiba

Early Career Researcher/Assistant Professor

PhD, Columbia University in the City of New York, 2025

Office Location
311 Morey Hall
Web Address
Website

Office Hours: By appointment

Curriculum Vitae

Biography

Elizabeth Adetiba (she/her) is an early career researcher and assistant professor in the Department of Black Studies at the University of Rochester. Dr. Adetiba earned her PhD in Sociology from Columbia University, where she specialized in historical sociology, science, knowledge, and technology, and medical sociology. Her research career extends from the U.S., to South Africa, to New Zealand, where she was a 2018 U.S. Fulbright Fellow. Her work has also been supported by National Science Foundation. Above all, Dr. Adetiba is a critical writer, having worked as a journalist and fact-checker prior to pursuing her doctoral studies. Her writing has been featured in HuffPost, Slate, The Nation, Salon, SB Nation, and The Black Youth Project, and you can find her most recent public articles on her website.

Research Overview

Dr. Adetiba’s work investigates how historical constructions of Blackness—and more so anti-Blackness— shape scientific thinking across a range of social domains, from medical and epidemiological scholarship, to athletics, to intergovernmental organizations. Her current book project explores the presence of anti-Black sentiment in the medical scholarship concerning the origins of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and its widespread impact on global AIDS policy.

Research Interests

  • Race and Bioethics
  • History of Medicine
  • Critical Social Theory
  • The Black Body
  • Disease and Epidemics
  • Science and Technology Studies